In this frame grab from video, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio takes a sip of water during his Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Why was Gov. Chris Christie, who gave the Republicans' convention keynote address, in California raising campaign cash, leaving upstart Sen. Marco Rubio uncontested to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address? Christie knows a trap door when he sees one.

The parties would be smart to drop rebuttals. You can't compete with the president addressing a joint session of Congress with the political bigwigs in house. The color. The drama. The excitement. You have to write your speech without knowing what the president will say. The president addresses an audience that responds, you look into a camera that never blinks. It's stacked against you.

The response gig is a losing proposition. What do you remember from any of them that you've seen or read about? How about the one with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was then, as Rubio is now, seen by some as the GOP's great hope?

Jindal began his address from the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge by wishing everyone a "Happy Mardi Gras!" That probably went over big in Bayou Country but around the rest of the nation Mardi Gras is synonymous with drunken people filling Bourbon Street and women yelling up to balconies with offers to bare their breasts for a few cheap beads tossed below.

That's not the image you want to conger up if your goal is the White House for anything more than a VIP tour. His stare and Southern accent reminded people of Kenneth the page on the sitcom "30 Rock." The speech wasn't any good, either. Instead of attracting new members to the party by offering reasonable alternatives, he kept to the party line about government being too big.

He labeled money spent for volcano monitoring as wasteful - this from a guy whose biggest town was 12 feet under water after Hurricane Katrina because of inadequate planning and protections. Jindal's national coming out party was a disaster for him politically.

That brings us to Rubio, a Florida senator with huge ambitions and backing from the Tea Party. Time magazine called him the Republican's savior, but the GOP's chosen one for the rebuttal wound up juggling contradictory issues on live TV. He tried appealing to his conservative base while making a case for drawing converts into the tent.

He also wants us to know he is not Mitt Romney, although the speech sounded just like Romney and running mate Rep. Paul Ryan. Government is too big. Rubio talked of his immigrant parents, how he inherited nothing and the middle class neighborhood he lived in - his Florida house is on the market for $675,000, but he never mentioned that.

There were also the student loans he only recently paid off. The idea seemed to be if he could do it, anyone could. That's true if you're a U.S. senator making $174,000 a year and have a bestselling book. Most of the middle class can't identify.

He said government programs hurt, not help, then went on to say federal aid helped pay for his college, and Medicare aided in his father's cancer fight, allowing him to die with dignity. His mother is on Medicare now. In the past he has said Medicare will weaken us. Which is it?

He also recorded a version in Spanish because some Republicans think a guy can attract the growing Latino vote by speaking the language and having a name like Rubio. They haven't seen the exit polls from 2012 showing Latino interests are much the same as those of the whole country - jobs, the economy.

That second speech in Spanish may have led to what we will remember from Rubio's national debut, right or wrong. He said his mouth was dry from all that speaking, and so on live TV he reached out of the frame to pick up a small bottle of water and take a big swig, all the time maintaining eye contact with the camera. It was awkward and amateurish. It looked foolish and showed a lack of planning. It went viral on the Internet and assured Rubio a place in the Rebuttal Hall of Fame next to Jindal's "Happy Mardi Gras!"

What is more important than what he put in his mouth is what came out of it. It was hypocritical and contradictory and not in keeping with his voting record or career. Focusing on the water bottle gives him a break he doesn't deserve and lets him off the hook, as funny as some think it is.

One can only imagine the reaction the media savvy Christie had out there in the Golden State raising money and hobnobbing with the rich, famous and powerful when he saw the young, inexperienced, overly ambitious Rubio go for it, and fall on his face.

Christie is popular because he understands media and how to develop and maintain an image and how to talk to an audience. He could go on "Saturday Night Live" wearing a blue fleece and have them rolling in the aisles laughing - by design. What he wouldn't do is stand over a trap door.